Senate Champion of the Allied Cause: Florida's Claude Pepper as Depicted in Political Cartoons, 1940-1941
Leon County Teacher Inservice Lesson Plan
Submitted by Peter A. Cowdrey, Jr., Leon High School, (850) 488-1971, Ext. 1170, cowdreyp@mail-leon.leon.kl2.fl.us.
About This Lesson
This lesson plan addresses Senator Claude Pepper's role as this country's leading senatorial advocate for the Allied cause during 1940 and 1941, before the U. S. entry into World War II. It focuses on several representative political cartoons published in U. S. newspapers during those years, copies of which are included below as transparencies for classroom use. It is designed for high school U. S. and world history classes, but can be modified for use in other settings.
This 50-minute program is designed to incorporate a novel approach (political cartoons) to acquaint students with Claude Pepper's important role as a U. S. Senator in sponsoring crucial American assistance to hard pressed European democracies during 1940 and 1941, and in stoutly opposing Adolf Hitler during those same years. Pepper's task during that era of strong Isolationism was not an easy one, and the cartoons selected here represent both sides of a once very heated and divisive issue.
Bibliography: Primary Sources
Pepper, Claude Denson. "Diary." Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida.
_____. "Address of Senator Claude Pepper of Florida at Helena, Montana June 4, 1941." 203 B, Box 11, Folder 1. Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida.
_____. Address of Senator Claude Pepper of Florida over Columbia Broadcasting System, "America's Danger is America's Opportunity," June 28, 1941, Washington, D. C. under Auspices of Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. 5203 B, Box 3A, Folder 4, Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida.
Photograph of President Roosevelt and Senator Claude Pepper on the rear platform of the president's special train car in Miami, Florida, 1937, Photograph B (1620), Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida.
Political Cartoons. "Keeping in Style" by Parrish, Chicago Tribune, 1940, Memorabilia Z 59; "Not the Way to Build a Two-Ocean Navy" by Brown, 1940, Memorabilia Z 59; "Untitled" (A winged President Roosevelt in the guise of peacemaker) by Parrish, Chicago Tribune, 1940, Memorabilia Z 1028; "A Slight Case of Indigestion" by Brudon, June 1941, Memorabilia Z 55; "Defense Stew" May 8, 1941, Memorabilia Z 1030; "Untitled" (Three Men on a Horse) by Brudon, no date, Memorabilia Z 54, Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida.
Bibliography: Secondary Sources:
Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant: A History of the Republic. Third Ed. Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1966.
Block, Maxine, ed. Current Biography: Who's News and Why-1941. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1941.
Lash, Joseph P. Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939-1941: The Partnership that Saved the West. New York: W. W. Norton, Inc., 1976.
Magnuson, Ed. "Nation: National Champion of the Elderly." Time. April 25, 1983, 21-29.
Morison, Samuel Eliot and Henry Steele comma ger. The Growth of the American Republic. Two volumes. Volume Two. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950.
Pepper, Claude Denson with Hays Gorey. Pepper: Eyewitness to a Century. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1987.
[Robinson, Erik]. Political Cartooning in Florida, 1901-1987. Tallahassee, Florida: Museum of Florida History, Florida Department of State, 1987.
Note: Grateful appreciation is expressed to Ms. Lisa Maynard of the Claude Pepper Foundation, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida; to Mr. Burt Altman and Mr. John Nemmers of the Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida; and to Mr. Erik Robinson of the Museum of Florida History, Florida Department of State, Tallahassee, Florida for their valuable assistance to me in the preparation of this lesson plan.
Political Cartoons: An Introduction
Political cartoons are a time-tested method of expressing support for or opposition to a person, a philosophy, or an idea. As defined by Erik Robinson of the Museum of Florida History, these cartoons are "'eyewitnesses to history and tell us what people saw and felt about events at the time they occurred" (Robinson, 1).
When we open our daily newspapers and examine any of the political cartoons contained in them, we are reading a form of political commentary that goes back 500 years. From the time of the Reformation up through the American and French Revolutions and right through to our own day, political cartoons have played a large role in shaping public opinion.
As artists, the cartoonists often draw their human subjects in a way that somewhat exaggerates their features. This is called caricature, and its use enables the cartoonist to depict political leaders in somewhat humorous settings. In order for caricature to work well, the reader must be able to recognize the person or persons being portrayed in the cartoon. Sometimes the cartoonists place name tags beside or on the persons they draw in order to make sure that the reader understands the point that the artist is trying to make.
Since political cartoons are drawings which rely on a minimum of written words, cartoonists frequently use symbolism, employing easily recognized images to enable readers to form powerful conclusions. We will see several examples of symbolism in today's program, starting with a political cartoon drawn by Benjamin Franklin more than two hundred years ago.
Transparency One: "Join, or Die"
Our first transparency is a political cartoon drawn in 1754 by Benjamin Franklin. It was published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in support of the Albany Congress, whose purpose was to present a united English colonial front against the French in North America at the outbreak of the French and Indian War. In this cartoon, entitled "Join, or Die," Franklin is making the point that if England's American colonies (labeled with initials) do not stand together against the French, they will be no more effective than small pieces of a chopped up (and hence useless) snake. It is only if they act together that they can prevail. The words are very few but powerful: "Join, or Die."
Historian Thomas A. Bailey has termed this cartoon "the most famous cartoon of the colonial era" (Bailey, 56). Colonial cooperation was indeed needed during the French and Indian War, and was even more necessary later during the American Revolution.
The point of Benjamin Franklin's 1754 political cartoon was well made, and the colonial cooperation that it helped to foster led eventually to the creation of the United States of America.
The rest of the political cartoons in this program will focus on the early 1940s and will deal with how political cartoonists depicted Claude Pepper with respect to the Senator's loyalty to President Roosevelt, his support of Great Britain, and his opposition to Nazi Germany.
Before we see the cartoons, however, we turn first to a historic photograph taken in Miami, Florida in 1937.
Transparency Two: Photograph of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Senator Claude Pepper in Miami, Florida, 1937.
This photograph shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Florida Senator Claude Pepper arriving by train to Miami on a cool November day in 1937. It shows President Roosevelt smiling in his customary way and waving to the crowd. To his left stands Senator Claude Pepper, also smiling.
This photo is valuable for several reasons:
- It shows President Roosevelt and Senator Pepper in a harmonious setting which Pepper believed would be a valuable vote getter in his upcoming reelection campaign.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat, had first been elected to the presidency in 1932. From the beginning of his first term, he had worked to combat the Great Depression through imaginative programs summed up in what he termed his "New Deal" policies. In 1937 when this picture was taken, Roosevelt had already been elected to his second presidential term, and had enjoyed much support from Senator Pepper.
Claude Pepper, Democrat, had first won election to the U. S. Senate in 1936 following the unexpected death of Florida Senator Duncan U. Fletcher that year. This had enabled Pepper to serve for the unexpired portion of Senator Fletcher's term, which meant that he would have to stand for reelection again in 1938. During his first two years, Pepper had demonstrated strong support of President Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies and had been invited by the president to accompany him as a guest on the presidential train to Florida in November 1937 (Claude Pepper with Hays Gorey, 66). In fact, President Roosevelt's support did help Senator Pepper to be reelected for a six-year term in 1938, and the senator continued to be a strong supporter of President Roosevelt until the president's death in 1945.
- Although President Roosevelt was a partially paralyzed victim of polio who needed help in order to stand, he was typically photographed as healthy and able-bodied, as in this example. Most Americans did not know of the president's paralysis, and political cartoonists of that era portrayed him as fully able-bodied.
- The photograph shows how both men actually looked. By seeing their picture here, we may be able to recognize them in the political cartoons which follow.
Transparency Three: "Keeping in Style"
During the late 1930s America's principal international concern was with the rise of dictatorships in Europe. Mussolini had come to power in Italy, Stalin ruled Russia, Hitler ruled Germany, and Franco-after a bitter and highly publicized civil war-controlled Spain.
Most Americans in this period were Isolationists. That is, they believed that Europe should work out its own problems without American involvement. World War I had left many Americans bitter and disillusioned about international involvement, and "strict neutrality" laws were passed in the Congress in order to prevent the United States from taking sides in any new European wars. Meanwhile, as the 1930s wore on, President Roosevelt began making necessary preparations in case the United States had to go to war. Also, as the democracies in Europe saw Hitler gaining more power and seizing more territory, Roosevelt came to oppose Isolationism as a misguided policy. Senator and Mrs. Pepper, who traveled to Europe in 1939, saw first-hand the danger that Hitler and Mussolini represented to the European democracies and to U. S. foreign policy. Senator Pepper remained a stalwart and outspoken opponent of Isolationism in speeches on the floor of the U. S. Senate and from his vantage point as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
This political cartoon from 1940 appeared in the Chicago Tribune, a strongly Isolationist newspaper. It accuses Pepper of a double-standard, criticizing in Europe what he was working to create in the United States, and it is filled with symbolism.
Senator Pepper, identified by his name tag in the upper left and caricatured as a short man in a fit of anger, is shown angrily denouncing European dictators, symbolized by the Nazi-looking military figure in the upper right.
In the bottom of the cartoon we see Claude Pepper represented as a tailor so short he must stand on a stool to measure the President for a new set of clothes. The president has discarded his "out-moded" suit coat on the floor. It is marked "Two Term Tradition" and symbolizes Roosevelt's willingness to stand for reelection to a third term, something no American president had ever done before. Meanwhile, Senator Pepper is shown arguing that the president needs a suit "just like they're wearing in Europe," and is getting ready to cut the president's new suit from bolts of cloth marked "Conscription of Everything," "Seizure of Emergency Powers," and "Dictatorship." The cartoonist is using powerful symbolism to imply that President Roosevelt is taking on the powers of the dictator in the upper right.
Transparency Four: "[Untitled] A Winged President Roosevelt in the Guise of a Peacemaker"
This political cartoon, like the one we just saw, was drawn by Parrish for the Chicago Tribune. In this one, also from 1940, President Roosevelt is depicted as a peacemaker. At first glance, he looks harmless enough in his heavenly wings, holding an olive branch and carrying a caged dove of peace.
When we look closer we see the wings are somewhat battered and losing their feathers. His clothes are in tatters, especially at the bottom, probably from walking through "Meddling in Europe," "Meddling in Asia," "Sword Rattling," "Quarantine Speech (of 1937)," and other non-peaceful pursuits. In the back, Claude Pepper is represented as waving a threatening sword. Meanwhile, the caged dove of peace is visibly disturbed by all of the violent references on the floor and protests continuously.
This cartoon is, like the last one, hostile to both President Roosevelt and Senator Pepper. Parrish was an outspoken critic of Roosevelt's international policies and blamed Claude Pepper for helping to bring those policies about.
As we will see, the next political cartoon also presents President Roosevelt and Senator Pepper in an unfavorable light, but for a different reason.
Transparency Five: "Not the Way to Build a Two-Ocean Navy"
Here the cartoonist has represented Senator Pepper as towing a fleet of U. S. Navy ships out into the Atlantic toward war-torn England across the sea in the upper right.
In this instance, the cartoonist has identified Senator Pepper by his given name tag. Attached to his right side is the note, "Proposed Sale of Destroyers to England." This is a reference to President Roosevelt's September 2, 1940 executive decision to sell fifty older model, World War I-era U. S. destroyers to England, which was then at war with Germany. The reason that clouds marked "England" are in the upper right is to show that England was being attacked by Hitler's air force and isolated yet further by Nazi U-boats. The English desperately needed destroyers to defeat Hitler's submarines and to keep the English sea lanes open for needed supplies.
Earlier in the year, Senator Claude Pepper had proposed legislation that came to be called "Lend-Lease," and the idea was voted down at first. Pepper continued to support the plan. Meanwhile, Roosevelt, realizing that any legislative effort to authorize a sale of navy ships to England would be blocked by Isolationist senators, acted on his own executive authority as president to make the plan a reality. Senator Claude Pepper strongly supported the president's sale of these destroyers to England, in exchange for which the United States received 99-year leases on seven valuable bases which stretched from Newfoundland to South America (Bailey, 870).
The cartoonist shows a very tall and angry Uncle Sam intervening to stop the "destroyer deal," as it was called. He is shown telling Senator Pepper: "Not so fast little man-we need those ships over here!" Since the United States is a country on two oceans, the cartoonist objected to the destroyer deal arguing that it was not as vital to our national safety as was our strong, two-ocean U.S. Navy-with all its destroyers.
Senator Pepper, addressed by Uncle Sam as "little man," was actually 5 ft. 7 inches tall (Magnuson, 22). As we have already seen, sometimes cartoonists who opposed Pepper caricatured him as shorter than he really was.
By late 1940, Senator Claude Pepper was becoming increasingly well known in the United States as a strong opponent of Hitler and Mussolini and as an advocate for Roosevelt's policy of increased American aid to European democracies in the early months of World War II. This made him popular with those who shared his opposition to the Nazis, but increasingly unpopular with the Isolationists.
Transparency Six: "[Untitled] Three Men on a Horse"
Here, cartoonist Lynn Brudon has drawn a horse named "America First" being ridden simultaneously by three men. The riders are identified by names on their clothing as Wheeler in front, Lindbergh in the middle, and Nye who is riding backwards and holding on to the horse's tail.
The three riders are dressed all alike in colonial garb, and there is no obvious difference among them: they all look just the same, and their messages above are so similar that the reader cannot tell just who is saying what. They are accusing President Roosevelt of being a war monger, arguing that "Nothing can crush Hitler but a negotiated peace," declaring that "This (World War II) is Britain's war," and pleading to "Make Pepper quit pickin' on us." The snorting horse looks very unhappy, probably because of the weight and the ineptitude of the three riders.
Nye is holding a colonial-style lantern, and there is a rhyme at the bottom left:
"Through every Middlesex
Village and farm-
These Paul Reveres
Spread Fear and Alarm-"
At the bottom right, Brudon has written a note, "With deep apologies to Paul Revere and Longfellow-(And also Paul's horse)." This refers to the cartoonist's borrowing part of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," and for changing some of the original words for their humorous effect when applied to the three bumbling riders in the cartoon.
The horse represents the America First Committee, formed to keep the United States out of World War II. Three of its best known spokespersons in 1941 were Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, the famous flier Charles A. Lindbergh, and Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota. All were strongly Isolationist. Note that Lindbergh is wearing a German-looking decoration. This is a symbolic reference to Lindbergh's several visits to Nazi Germany and to his being decorated in 1938 by Nazi leader Hermann Goering with the Service Cross of the Order of the German Eagle, an award which Lindbergh accepted (Block, 516). All were strongly opposed to Roosevelt's policies as well as to Claude Pepper's repeated speeches on behalf of aid to England and to Pepper's sponsorship of the compulsory military training bill.
The cartoon is strongly critical of the America First Committee and its Isolationism, and also is a compliment to both President Roosevelt and to Senator Pepper.
Transparency Seven: "Defense Stew"
Here the cartoonist has depicted President Roosevelt as a chef with his initials, F.D.R., on his chef's hat. He is cooking up a stew so hot that the president's glasses are fogged from the steam. He is adding an important ingredient, "Pepper Florida brand" to the stew, commenting, "I use it for seasoning. It's hot stuff, but tasty."
Here the cartoonist has used Pepper's name as symbolic of the necessary cooking ingredient to make the stew come out exactly as hot as the chef, President Roosevelt, wants it to be. It is this ingredient, "Pepper Florida Brand," which gives the Defense Stew its necessary potency. Note that Pepper is further identified by the caricature of his face which is at the outside bottom of the pepper container.
The date for the cartoon is given as May 8, 1941. This was two months after the passage of the Lend Lease Bill in both houses of Congress. Pepper had worked for a year in getting it passed, and the bill went a long way in helping President Roosevelt to achieve his foreign policy goal of providing assistance to England and of making the United States the "Arsenal of Democracy" for beleaguered nations elsewhere (Lash, 288; Morison and Commager, 658).
The cartoonist has paid a very high compliment to Senator Pepper in showing how vital he was to President Roosevelt's U. S. defense plans, symbolized here as "Defense Stew."
Transparency Eight: "A Slight Case of Indigestion"
The last political cartoon in our program shows a very unhappy Adolf Hitler whose alphabet soup-spelling the names of Lindbergh and Wheeler-has been spoiled by "Too much Pepper," Senator Claude Pepper from Florida. Note Hitler's name on the soup dish, and his initials, A.H., on the handle of the spoon. Since Lindbergh and Wheeler were Isolationists who opposed any U. S. intervention on behalf of England, their message was attractive to Hitler. Senator Pepper, however, fresh from his final victory in Lend-Lease and ardent foe of the Nazis, spoke against Hitler and the Isolationists at every opportunity.
The note at the lower left indicates that Pepper's new plan to frustrate the Isolationists was "Conceived at the Forbes breakfast table June 1st 1941 (in) Rockford Illinois." Claude Pepper's diary shows that he visited Seely Forbes, City Councilman of Rockford, Illinois on May 31 and June 1, 1941, and that on June 1, he delivered three addresses, one of which was a thirty-minute radio speech. He had high praise for Seely Forbes and noted that the Rockford, Illinois area contained a large Swedish immigrant population which responded favorably to Pepper's ideas, but that it also was an area of strong Isolationist support (Pepper, "Diary," May 31-June 1, 1941).
Several days later, on June 4, 1941, Claude Pepper delivered another speech, this time at Helena, Montana in the home state of Isolationist Senator Burton K. Wheeler. Pepper warned his listeners in Montana of the danger Hitler represented to the whole world, and appealed to them to stand apart from some of their leaders. He said, "My fellow Americans, do not let these fake prophets, these modern Pied Pipers of Hamlin, lead you to your destruction" (Pepper, "Address at Helena," 4).
Less than three weeks later, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union and Pepper lost no time in warning what would happen if Hitler conquered Russia as he had conquered so much of Europe. He said, "A great railroad runs across Russia. It runs this way. It could bring Hitler's men, Hitler's tanks, Hitler's guns, Hitler's flame throwers, Hitler's gestapoes (sic). Those are Russia's fortifications just off the coast of Alaska, within sight of Alaska. If Hitler crushes Russia, German Nazis will be in those fortifications. They will not have to cross the Pacific. They are already within sight and America's rising sun will every day lift America's glory and wealth before their greedy eyes" (Pepper, Address, "America's Danger," 3).
With speeches like this coming from Claude Pepper and being so widely reported and so well received, Hitler's indigestion as depicted in this cartoon is easily explained as stemming from "Too much Pepper mit der alphabet soup."
Afterword
The program you have just seen shows how political cartoonists recorded the important contributions of Florida's Senator Claude Pepper during the two years just prior to the United States entry into World War II. As we have seen, these cartoons document Pepper's outspoken support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's foreign policy and his courageous opposition to Adolf Hitler at a time when some of America's best known citizens seemed unaware of-or even supportive of Hitler's agenda.
These political cartoons do not tell the whole story. They do not document the many instances of support Senator Pepper received from others-especially his wife, Mildred, who was by his side whenever possible. They do, however, highlight Pepper's national and international importance during 1940 and 1941, and they correctly depict him as the U. S. Senate's best known opponent of Isolationism and the Nazis.
Readers of that era read and understood these political cartoons, and they knew at a glance whether the cartoons were favorable to Senator Pepper or whether they were critical of him. As time passed, thinking readers surely noticed that Pepper's stand on the issues was being reflected in a growing public opinion approval, away from Isolationism and strict neutrality, and toward a greater involvement on the side of Great Britain and against Nazi Germany.
President Roosevelt was elected to a third term as president in 1940, and to yet a fourth term in 1944. In both of these election campaigns he had the strong support of Claude Pepper. President Roosevelt died in office on April 12, 1945, and Pepper was one of only seventeen senators to be invited to attend the burial services at the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park, NY (Claude Pepper with Hays Gorey, 143).
Claude Pepper served in the U. S. Senate until 1950, and in the House of Representatives from 1962 until his death in 1989. As a Congressman in his later years, Claude Pepper came to be known as the "National Champion of the Elderly" (Magnuson, 21-25).
Claude Pepper never forgot his roots, and all during his later years he looked back with pride on his close association with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and on his relentless opposition to Adolf Hitler.
